Kendall Coyne wins 2016 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award

Kendall Coyne, a Palos Heights, Ill., native and senior forward at Northeastern, was awarded the 2016 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, the USA Hockey Federation announced Saturday. The honor is given to the top player in NCAA Division I women's hockey.

Coyne beat out senior forward and 2015 Patty Kazmaier winner Alex Carpenter of Boston College and junior goaltender Ann-Renee Desbiens of Wisconsin. Coyne is the second Northeastern player to win the award, joining Brooke Whitney, who earned the honor in 2002.

Coyne leads the nation in five major scoring categories: goals (50), goals per game (1.35), points per game (2.27), shorthanded goals (5) and hat tricks (5). Her 84 points rank second in the nation.

The Northeastern captain has coached at Chicago Blackhawks Youth Hockey camps. She will compete for Team USA in the 2016 Women's World Championship, which begin March 28 in Kamloops, British Columbia.

The award is named after the late Patty Kazmaier, who died Feb. 15, 1990 at 28 from a rare blood disease. Kazmaier was a four-year varsity player and All-Ivy League defenseman at Princeton from 1981-86.